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There is some sort of a price increase scheme going on at the moment. I ordered the VT50 65inch from Amazon on 6/19 and as a prime member, made a price match request with BestBuy's $3099.98. They sat on it for 2 days and I called again and now they won't give it to me for that price because Bestbuy.com's price is now like $3499 and Amazon also increased it to the same price. I have had to cancel the order. This is just ridiculous behavior

There is some sort of a price increase scheme going on at the moment. I ordered the VT50 65inch from Amazon on 6/19 and as a prime member, made a price match request with BestBuy's $3099.98. They sat on it for 2 days and I called again and now they won't give it to me for that price because Bestbuy.com's price is now like $3499 and Amazon also increased it to the same price. I have had to cancel the order. This is just ridiculous behavior

Keep checking both sites. Their prices have been fluctuating the last couple of weeks. Sometimes on a daily basis. Seems strange for BB as I thought their prices were good for a whole week. The last couple of weeks, it has been cheaper at the beginning of the week, then they have raised the price later in the week.

Just checked BB and it is unavailable at any of the local stores, and not available for shipping. Was available for store pick up in 3-5 days, yesterday. Maybe stock is low at the moment.

Oh, I did not know that the prices have been lower in the beginning of the week. I will wait until next week and see how the prices fluctuate. A $4-500 price increase is mind boggling. Could it be that they are playing the price game based on the great reviews? I hope that's not the case. Thanks for the great tip.

Anyone have any luck getting Amazon to price match Panasonic.com with a discount via their employer? I have a 40% discount as a registered "Panasonic Purchase Program Partner". It would be awesome if Amazon would price match as Panasonic offers free shipping as well.

There is some sort of a price increase scheme going on at the moment. I ordered the VT50 65inch from Amazon on 6/19 and as a prime member, made a price match request with BestBuy's $3099.98. They sat on it for 2 days and I called again and now they won't give it to me for that price because Bestbuy.com's price is now like $3499 and Amazon also increased it to the same price. I have had to cancel the order. This is just ridiculous behavior

You should have fought them on that. When you called for a price match, they verify the price of the competitor right at that moment. It shouldn't matter that the price change as long as it was not a one day sale or clearance or any time limited sale. You may still want to give them a call and speak to a manager.

I fought with them and they responded with some BS in email which is pasted verbatim below (just ridiculous imho):

Hello,

This is with the Amazon Large Items team. We handle all the TV Low Price Guarantee claims.

I've reviewed our previous correspondence with you, and I'm very sorry about the misunderstanding or incorrect information you received.

The initial transfer form for the TV Low Price Guarantee request submitted on June 19 by did request a price match to $3099.00 against Best Buy for the Panasonic VIERA TC-P65VT50, order #.

However, when the Guarantee request was processed on June 20, the price of the television on Best Buy was $3499.98. Unfortunately, an email confirming this was accidentally sent to an internal email address and therefore never reached you. I'm very sorry about this and understand the frustration it has caused.

According to our Guarantee, term #2: "The lower price must remain in effect at the time your Guarantee request is verified by Amazon. Expired offers are not eligible." Therefore, we must price match according to the currently listed price.

I fought with them and they responded with some BS in email which is pasted verbatim below (just ridiculous imho):
Hello,
This is with the Amazon Large Items team. We handle all the TV Low Price Guarantee claims.
I've reviewed our previous correspondence with you, and I'm very sorry about the misunderstanding or incorrect information you received.
The initial transfer form for the TV Low Price Guarantee request submitted on June 19 by did request a price match to $3099.00 against Best Buy for the Panasonic VIERA TC-P65VT50, order #.
However, when the Guarantee request was processed on June 20, the price of the television on Best Buy was $3499.98. Unfortunately, an email confirming this was accidentally sent to an internal email address and therefore never reached you. I'm very sorry about this and understand the frustration it has caused.
According to our Guarantee, term #2: "The lower price must remain in effect at the time your Guarantee request is verified by Amazon. Expired offers are not eligible." Therefore, we must price match according to the currently listed price.
For more information including a list of the eligible sites and the full list of the Terms & Conditions, see the TV Low Price Guarantee page here:http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200726210
I'm sorry that I don't have better news. As soon as we receive the refused television back to our warehouse, we'll issue a full refund and send you an email confirmation.
I hope you'll consider this an isolated incident and give us another chance in the future.

Was the large item dept. closed when you requested the price match initially? I'm trying to understand why they verified the price the next day. Usually they verify at the same time you speak to them. Don't be too disappointed as the price has been even lower. I'm pretty sure the price will come back down.

Best Buy in store price is usually better than online. Might want to check your local weekly flyer for best Best Buy price.

I have seen the price both higher and lower at the store. BB has had at least four different prices each of the last two weeks. $3599, $3499, $3199 and $3099. Of course, who knows what they will do next.

Also, don't know if this was mentioned, check your credit cards. Discover, for instance gives you 5% back if you link to BB through the Discover site. Other cards offer similar deals. I am getting $155 back on my purchase price of $3099.

But don't just expect them to be nice and do a price match without bugging the customer. They put you on hold for 30minutes and try to find every single little cost from the other website they can bolt including an artificial "comparable 2-day shipping fee" that Prime supposedly does not have despite the fact that the earliest day the TV can be delivered to you will be 10 days from the day of purchase. My impression of Amazon's good customer service has gone from good to bad to just horrible and I am not sure if this is just a recent change in their behavior.

They process your cc before you ever receive the product with the an eta on delivery. When the date gets pushed back, you get a bunch of different reasons as to why and when you start asking questions he starts getting nasty.

That website has a mixed bag of customer experiences, namely the negative ones involving the use of Paypal. I would tread carefully, or actually avoid that one and pony up a little more to a more common reputable dealer.

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They process your cc before you ever receive the product with the an eta on delivery. When the date gets pushed back, you get a bunch of different reasons as to why and when you start asking questions he starts getting nasty.

I think you covered most of the avenues for a great price. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone or have a way to get employee pricing but I believe that would be the best price one can get.

I would recommend checking the price at your local dealer. I purchesed a 65" at my local appliance store that is a Panasonic dealer and paid $2930. I expect you could get this same price from your local dealer.

Yes, it is insane and if you watched closely, there seems to have been a wholesale price-fixing on that one model across Amazon, Sears, BestBuy, etc. It all happened on the exact same day - 6/19. That morning the price was at $3099 across these sites and by evening by some magical coincidence, everyone's price went up to exactly $3498 and some cents.. unbelievable!

Also, the reviews of the set, at Amazon also appear very suspiciously positive whereas they are the exact opposite for the Samsung ES8000 60inch. Having seen both of them together at a few BestBuy stores over a few days, I have to say that the VT50 has hands-down more "natural" picture quality whereas the ES8000 is much brighter and has better feature set. I am seriously considering just going with the ES8000 if they are going to price-fix the VT50 like that. There's bound to be a major disruption later this year with the OLED's and Apple launching their TV, so $4-500 extra will certainly not be well spent at this point in time.

Another tip - don't add any of these TV's to your shopping cart at either Amazon or BestBuy. They gauge the stats of these items added as increased buyer interest and we all lose due to the price not dropping.. just my 2 cents!